


salvia plath

by larvitar



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: F/F, Self-Harm, Songfic, but i tagged it jic, just implied, not really underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-09 17:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11109144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larvitar/pseuds/larvitar
Summary: songfic , based on the song " salvia plath " by teenage suicide☆★☆enjoy your pain





	salvia plath

**Author's Note:**

> btdubs :  
> no real underage . i don't write smut especially smut regarding minors , the underage is just referenced .  
> 

_you said you hate yourself_

Veronica doesn't expect Heather Chandler of all people to say she hates herself. And to her, out of all people. Veronica would more so expect it from the trenchcoat kid who sits at the edge of the cafeteria who Veronica almost had a thing with, once upon a time. Thank God for Heather's Porsche honking like mad and Heather's interruption in the 7/11. Otherwise, she might not have escaped with her sanity. Not that she had much to begin with, but regardless.

They're having a sleepover at Veronica's. Duke and McNamara had left early, and Veronica had suspicions that Heather either bribed or threatened both of them to do so. It's a little after midnight, the hubbub of the sleepover had died down and Veronica was starting to drift asleep. Her eyelids are drooping, she's in the perfect position, and-

Heather speaks.

"Veronica, I need to tell you something but I fucking swear to Mario and Martino Prada that I will scrape you off into loserdom like a piece of gum on my heel if you say a  _word_ about this to anyone, even Duke or Mac."

It's a lot to take in, especially in Veronica's sleep-deprived state. She shakes herself up and answers. "I wouldn't dare."

"Good Sawyer," purrs Heather. It's amazing how swiftly and quickly Heather can go from demon queen to high school seductress. Veronica doesn't fully understand it herself.

Heather breathes in.

"I'm going to be real honest here. I fucking hate myself. And I shouldn't. I have everything any dumb shit at this school would die for. Popularity, sex, and money. But God, something's missing. You really begin to think about things after some boy shoves his dick in you like you're a limp doll for the 22nd time. Or when half of your friends just want to use you. Or when your parents always seem to leave eagerly for their business trips. It eats away at you."

Veronica looks down at her sheets as she tries to think of a way to reply. It's sudden, but then again everything about Veronica's introduction to the Heathers is sudden.

"Do you need anything?"

Veronica kind of sputters it out. She doesn't know what she should say, so she asks the only thing that would seem appropriate. 

"A distraction." Heather crosses her arms while saying this, as it comes out in a bit of a mumble.

Veronica tries to think for a moment. All her board games are in the attic- and even so, two of the most popular teenagers in school wouldn't even dare to touch a Monopoly board. If Veronica even brought it out, Heather would sneer and say board games are for Betty Finn and the rest of her lookalike nerd friends. Veronica would've discarded the comment and put the game away, so she doesn't even try opening the panel to the attic.

Then Veronica gets an idea, in another sudden moment. It's not a very good one, but it's a distraction nonetheless.

"Hold on," Veronica says, leaving her bedroom and flashing a single finger at Heather. "Be back in a mo'."

Veronica darts down the stairs to the kitchen and pulls open the fridge. Her parents slept like rocks, so even if she fell down the stairs, they wouldn't awake. Veronica quickly scans the contents of her fridge before pulling out the strawberries that had rested in her fridge and her mom's favorite ceramic plate. Her mom had bought it from a garage sale and let 5-year-old Veronica paint over the dull stone color and had treasured it dearly after that. Veronica finds it only fitting to use it for Heather. 

Veronica washes the strawberries, humming the tune from Madonna's "Like a Prayer" to herself. McNamara had sung that song so much casually and played it during their outings it was hard not to get it stuck in her head. She arranges the strawberries in a pattern, eight around the edge of the plate and one in the middle. Nine would probably be enough, Veronica figures. She puts the strawberries away, still leaving out the towel just in case the queen commands more. Veronica grabs the plate from the counter, running up the stairs entering her room by pushing open the door that's open a crack and closing it behind her.

"M' back," Veronica announces, plopping herself down on the bed with the plate in one hand.

"Took you long enough," scoffs Heather. 

"Well, here I am, strawberries in tow." Veronica straightens herself up on the bed while saying it, putting the plate down on her sheets. "It might not be a very good distraction, but it's a distraction nonetheless, so." Veronica coughs awkwardly after her statement.

"What are you going to do with them? Throw them at me until I fall over and die?" Heather scoffs again.

"No no, there's not even enough strawberries with me to do that. It'd be ineffective to just bring up a plate of nine instead of the whole carton if my intentions were to kill you."

"Then what  _are_ you going to do with them?"

"Feed them to you, dumbass."

"Then go ahead, smartass."

Veronica smirks at Heather as she picks up a strawberry. Her hands quake a little, which is normal. It's usually because of stress, or anxiety. It's probably the latter. After all, it's not all the time your hands get to be a few centimeters away from the hottest girl in school's lips. Veronica gulps and tries not to think about it.

Heather doesn't comment on how much Veronica's hands are shaking. It'd be rude, and just make her shake more. Besides, Heather was determined to preserve the friendship with the only girl who truly cared about her.

Soon enough, it's over. Neither of them knows what to say afterward, so they sit in silence for a bit before Heather breaks it.

"Thanks for the strawberries."

"Yeah, anytime."

The silence continues for a bit longer after that, and this time Veronica breaks the silence.

"We should probably get back to sleep."

"Yeah." The air is laced with tension (of the sexual sort, Veronica thinks, but maybe she's just anxious and overthinking it).

Veronica tugs the covers over herself, diagonally spreading herself across the bed. She shares some of the covers with Heather, and they drift off to sleep.

Veronica wonders the morning after if Heather still hates herself.

(She already knows the answer.)

☆★☆

_if you still hate yourself_

The cycle continues sometimes, but not quite. Sometimes McNamara and Duke will leave early and sometimes they won't. It's dependent on Heather Chandler's mood. If Heather was acting snappier than usual, that was usually a sign the secondary Heathers would go home before the clock even struck eight.

Then, one night, Heather requests (or rather, demands) something quite odd.

"Veronica, I need you to fuck me."

Veronica sputters and almost falls off the bed. Not that she'd decline the offer, in fact, maybe she'd been waiting for it. It's just all too surprising. 

"You w-want me to w-w-what?"

"You're probably the only person who treats me like a person and not a threat or a quick fuck. The guys who fuck me never treat me with respect. My first time, I was only 14 and I was gangbanged by a bunch of upperclassmen. Do you know how fucking horrible that was? I was crying and I had to walk home, and I could barely even move my legs. Not to mention, I was bleeding like hell. So do it." Heather spreads her legs wide.

"Show me what a real fuck is."

Veronica obeys, starts at the top of Heather and goes down until her head is between Heather's legs and Heather is making the most ungodly sounds.

Veronica then promptly wonders after if anyone has ever properly bowed to the queen before.

☆★☆

_if you still hate yourself (again)_

It's senior year. Their cycle continues in waves, waves in patterns of sleepover-sleepover-fuck-normal and it repeats. 

But it's Friday and Heather isn't at school.

Veronica prompts McNamara during lunch about it. If she asked Duke, her reply would be either snarky or nonexistent. Today, it would probably be a mixture of both.

"You know, it's weird. Sometimes she skips school on Fridays to go to the mall, but she would definitely bring us with. She'd either pick Duke and me up in her Porsche and then call you to haul ass because we're skipping, or call Duke to pick us up in the Jeep. I didn't even see her Porsche in the parking lot."

Veronica taps her fingers against the lunch table. She tries to think of what she can do, but she can't do anything now, at school. All she can do is stare at the lunch table, for now.

Then Duke and McNamara are getting up. "C'mon, Veronica, Heather's got to purge." Veronica sighs and gets up, following the secondary Heathers to the bathroom. On her trip to the bathroom, she makes a mental note to call Chandler after school. That seems like something she can do.

☆★☆

Veronica gets home a bit later than usual. She had to walk (God forbid she take the bus) because of Chandler's absence and she didn't want to try Duke's mood today. She quickly slips her blue Oxfords off and heads up her stairs, trying to move quickly but quietly so her mother doesn't ask her the reason of her rush. She slips off her backpack, jumping onto her bed and grabbing her phone. God, sometimes Veronica wishes she had a mobile phone.

It's sort of embarrassing that Veronica has her phone number memorized- 419-899-4571, and she enters in the numbers mechanically. There's sort of a rhythm to entering in phone numbers, with the little beeps of each button and all.

Veronica hears the incessant ringing of Heather's phone. She hears a crackle as the answering machine answers.

"This is Heather Chandler. If you're some guy I had sex with once at a party, fuck off. If you're somebody worthy like Heather, Heather, or Veronica, leave a message. But make it short." Veronica hears the BEEP go off, as she twirls the cord around her finger. She breathes in and begins to speak.

"Heather? It's Veronica. You weren't at school today, which is weird, considering it's a Friday. Call me back when you get this. Love you." The "love you" slips in like habit and Veronica almost doesn't notice. She doesn't do anything about it though, calling Heather again about something so minuscule and calling her again, in general, would be a death wish.

Veronica decides perhaps the only worthy use of her time is to sit around and do her homework. She conjugates French verbs absentmindedly, far too distracted to actually care about the past tense with être. Heather doesn't call her at all the entire night, and it worries her something awful. She passes out eventually, face down in her Calculus, still no call from Heather Chandler.

☆★☆

Veronica wakes up, dazed and drooling on her textbook. It's Saturday morning, no call from Heather. Which means there's only one thing to do. 

Go over to her house and find out what happened herself. Her parents are off at work already, so there's no need to write a note or holler to them or anything. Veronica throws on a gray cardigan over the blue shirt she passed out in, slips her Oxfords back on and heads out. 

Heather's house is not that far from hers. Well, actually, yes it kind of is. On foot, anyway. In a car or any other vehicle, it's about three minutes. On foot, though, it's a cool 45. Maybe it's a bit extra to walk 45 minutes just to check if your  ~~crush~~ best friend is okay, but Veronica's willing to indulge in being extra for a bit.

Veronica enters through the sliding door on the porch. She's pretty sure Heather's given her a key to her house at some point, but the sliding door is always unlocked and just easier to enter through. She slips her Oxfords off when she steps onto the kitchen tile (just to be polite) and makes her way to Heather's room. 

Veronica knocks on the door with the back of her knuckle. "Heather? You didn't answer my message I left on your answering machine and you weren't at school yesterday. I- got worried, so I came over." Veronica has to force herself to expel the "I got worried" from her mouth, because she's sure not a lot of people (or anyone, really) would worry about Heather Chandler.

Heather doesn't answer, so Veronica just opens the door. She doesn't see Heather when she steps into her room, but she hears the faucet running from Heather's bathroom. Veronica cautiously advances to the bathroom, pushing open the cracked door to reveal Heather on top of the (closed) toilet and dabbing at what seems to be scars on her hip with a damp towel. Lucky the towel is red.

When Heather turns up to face Veronica, her expression turns from a worrisome expression to coldness.

"The fuck are you doing in my bathroom, Veronica? No, no, no, wait. What the fuck are you doing in my  _house_ _?_ _"_

"Heather, I-I got worried on Friday, and you didn't respond to my message I left on your answering machine- and here you are, dabbing at- scars -oh my god, are those self-inflicted? Did you cut yourself? -but God I think it's only right I come to see you, being your best friend and all-"

"For fuck's  _sake,_ Sawyer! I thought I taught you better than this!" Heather hisses.

"I was just- so worried, and you weren't at school, and I just-"

"Shut  _up!"_ The "up" comes in a stronger hiss then the last hiss, as Heather slams her fist into the medicine cabinet's mirror. 

The glass shatters immediately, falling onto the counter and the floor and some into the sink. Heather's hand begins to bleed from the shards of glass, and she puts her fist in her mouth to suck up the blood.

"School can go fuck itself."

Veronica stands, shell-shocked for a moment. She looks at the scattered shards of glass on the floor, on the counter, and then looks to Heather. "What the hell, Heather? That shit's gonna cut up your fucking throat!"

"Good," growls Heather.

"Now get the fuck out of my house."

Veronica doesn't say anything. She looks at Chandler. Heather is seething with rage, one fist curled up tightly and the other in her mouth. Veronica sighs, nodding. She grabs Heather's doorframe before she leaves.

"Goodbye, Heather." Veronica gives Heather one last glance. She then departs, worry in her mind and coldness in her heart.

Maybe that's what Heather feels like.

☆★☆

Heather Chandler returns life back to normal on Monday. No more one-on-one sleepovers. No more free fucks. She doesn't know why she'd want to do that, but maybe it's because of the matching gauze Veronica now has on her hips.

☆★☆

_i'll buy the biggest tv_

Maybe to a smarter person, Heather Chandler's suicide would've been expected with the information considered. It's another one of those sudden things, Veronica thinks. Or perhaps it isn't so sudden, Veronica just isn't used to acts of impulse. Even by Heather Chandler, of all people.

She's not the first person to find the note. It's Duke and Mac, actually. Before Heather Chandler pulled the curtains, she called Duke and asked her to drive this morning, and skip her and get Veronica. They do, school is normal except for Chandler's absence. After Duke and Mac dropped Veronica off, they went to check on Chandler. McNamara said she'd call Veronica and tell her how Heather was. They had dropped her off, and McNamara had given her a hug and a smile and said Heather Chandler would be fine. A smile even tugged at the edges of Duke's mouth. Heather McNamara's optimism was infectious.

They had gone up to her room, with her parents noting she wasn't feeling too well and opened the door. She was tucked in bed, her left arm slacked by her side with a white mug on the ground. The edges of her mouth and the liquid leaking from the mug were both blue- drain cleaner. It was a very Heather-esque death. Everything was clean and undisturbed. To the unobservant eye, it was hard to tell she was dead. The drano leaking from the edge of her mouth and her ghostly paleness (only observable through close inspection) were the only factors that gave away that she was in fact not living.

Her suicide note was something else entirely. It started off "Dear World," and it only deteriorated from there. Heather griped about every boy treating her like a sex doll and virtually almost every girl treating her like a stepping stool. The "virtually" all girls did not include Duke, McNamara, and Veronica, however. To Duke, she told to toughen up, to Mac, she told to not be a follower, and to Veronica- she loved her.

When Veronica first hears this from McNamara on the phone, she doesn't know what to say. Or do. McNamara then adds that Heather gave Veronica her clothes, her accessories ("you still can't accessorize for shit"), and her TV. Veronica takes all of it home in one fell swoop, with the help of Duke, McNamara, and Duke's Jeep.

She goes to the funeral that Friday. The services aren't anything special, but Veronica wouldn't know. It's her first funeral. Heather McNamara uses the holy water to primp her hair, and then asks her after the funeral if Veronica could do her a favor and go on a double date with Kurt and Ram with her. Veronica weakly smiles, saying "Not tonight." McNamara says she could reschedule for tomorrow night. Veronica says "That's fine," and agrees to protect her from them. McNamara laughs and says they're not that bad, waving her off as she hitches a ride with Duke, as is per usual. She had hitched a ride with Duke here, but said she had wanted to walk home. Duke jokingly called her "wild" as McNamara giggled.

Her walk home was decently long, about an hour and a half hour. She had taken off the hat she wore to the funeral before walking home, trying as hard as she could not to draw attention to herself. 

She didn't want to be the center of attention anymore.

☆★☆

Her mom asks how the funeral was and she replies with a grumbling "Fine." She stalks upstairs to her room, flipping off her flats at the door. She flops down on her baby blue bed, flipping through the channels on Heather's TV until she eventually lands on a cooking channel where the host has a calming enough voice to where he can drone on and Veronica can fall softly asleep.

Maybe she can do this for the rest of her life.

Maybe she'll see Heather in her dreams.

☆★☆

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was a fucking MONSTER to finish oh my god  
> ALSO there will be a second part to i've been ghosting , i've just been drained of insp for that lol  
> also i had to look up fake phone numbers for sherwood ohio for this , so , you best enjoy this


End file.
